Night Lords
The Night Lords are a Loyalist First Founding Space Marine Legion known for their dark nature and actions which are ever questioned. Some argue that they are simply a function of necessity, the monsters that were needed to drag a barbaric age back into the light. Midnight clad, and wielding fear as a weapon, the Night Lords haunt the dark places of the Imperium. They do this not to hide from the light of justice, but because that is where those who would seek to harm the Emperor's subjects are to be found. Since the time of their Primarch, Konrad Curze, the Night Lords have been guided by visions of the darkest of futures which they are driven to avert, even at the cost of their own lives. By their blood and sacrifice the Imperium of Mankind has been kept safe from rebellions, xenos invasions and betrayals without number. Legion History The VIIIth Legion were soaked in blood from their birth. Their Terran origins began on Old Earth during the Wars of Unification. The Legion's first recruits came from the linked prison sinks of Ancient Terra. In vast caverns filled with the half crushed ruins of millennia there lived men and women who had transgressed against the laws of their masters. Condemned never to see the light again or breathe free air, they lived out their lives in fear and blind darkness. There was no law in these lightless lands, and survival existed only by a blade's edge. Only the strongest and the most ruthless survived in the subterranean warrens, and those who did grew in cruelty and cunning. Fed by a constant influx from the hives above, the prison sinks were an ever hungering gate to madness and murder. Amongst the bloodshed and fear, children were born. Cradled in the dark, and raised amongst death, those who lived over a decade were pale, silent creatures who moved without a sound. 'The night's children' the prisoners called them, and even the most savage of killers would not seek them out by choice. It was from these pale children that the Emperor would make the first warriors of the VIIIth Legion. The first use that the Emperor put his VIIIth Legion to was to bring to heel those who believed that the sins of past could live on in the Imperium, for even in the face of all of the Emperor's might, some would fall back into the ways of Old Night. When such crimes required not simply crushing but retribution, the Emperor sent the VIIIth Legion. Such actions seemed well suited to the VIIIth Legion, for the dark was the realm of guilt, lies and monsters, and those who dwelt in the dark knew only the language of blood, the message of swift and merciless retribution for their actions. Nostramo - Realm of Eternal Night The arrival of the infant Primarchs changed each of their homeworlds forever, but few have been transformed so profoundly for the better than the planet of Nostramo. The place the Primarch of the VIII Legion found as he emerged from his incubator pod was one of eternal, stygian darkness, choking pollution and endemic, institutionalised crime; descriptions which certainly do not apply to the Nostramo of the 41st Millennium. In the revered, handwritten accounts of his youth, the Primarch tells of how he grew up on the unlit streets of Nostramo Quintus, hiding from everyone, even the gangs of abandoned children which roamed the slums. He watched the press of humanity around him, content simply to study them, until he witnessed a family being menaced by a gang of thugs. The sight of the criminals attempting to steal the baby from its parents offended something deep inside him, and in an instant he was upon them with the only weapons he had – his nails and teeth. By the time his enemies had breathed their last, the terrified family had already fled from their blood-soaked protector. From that point on, no longer was he able to look on, as injustice was perpetrated. He made it his business to put an end to such things. Those who witnessed his attacks told of a soulless creature of nightmare which stalked the shadows and wore the darkness like a cloak. For the first time he also had a name: to his prey he was the Night Haunter. As he grew to maturity, he came to realise that the criminals he had been punishing had been given their orders by more powerful individuals. Over the course of a long, bloody year, the Night Haunter waged war upon the corruption which had spread its tendrils right to the top of society. From the heads of the organised crime syndicates to the law enforcement officials who had spat upon their oaths for personal gain, none were safe from his punishment; their broken bodies left for all to see as warnings to those who broke the Night Haunter’s law. Fearing for their lives, the criminals searched in vain for their tormentor. Unimaginable sums were offered for his head, or even for information, but to no avail. He had no-one, so could not be betrayed, and Nostramo contained more than enough shadows in which to hide. The war was bloody, but one-sided, and eventually the criminal population was cowed into complete submission. From the alleyways of the undercity to the corridors of power, no-one dared to break the law lest they be the next to suffer the Night Haunter’s retribution. By the time Imperial Expeditions reached Nostramo, drawn initially by tales of its bountiful supplies of adamantium, they found the world orderly, productive and ruled over by a being of preternatural abilities. Magnus the Red of the Thousand Sons ventured down to investigate further, and soon confirmed that another of the Emperor’s long-lost Primarch sons had indeed been found. In the time it took for the Emperor to reach Nostramo, Magnus bonded with his brother, and spoke in glowing terms of their father's great quest to unite the scattered worlds of mankind under Imperial Law. With his interest in justice, this aspect held considerable appeal to the Night Haunter. In return, Magnus was fascinated to learn that his brother was gifted by brief flashes of precognitive ability, although he had so far been unable to use this fore-knowledge in any meaningful way. The eventual arrival of the Emperor was a time of hushed expectation and awe. So accustomed to the darkness were the people of Nostramo that when the Emperor first stepped from his landing craft, many were dazzled by the golden light reflected from His burnished power armour. However, it was as nothing to what occurred next. As the Night Haunter approached his father in humble supplication, the Emperor opened his arms wide in welcome, and the entire sky lit up as it had not done in living memory. In honour of the new dawn which the Imperium had brought to Nostramo, the Emperor had ordered the orbit of Tenebor to be fractionally altered, so that the moon would no longer hold the world in a permanent eclipse. Even though the light from Nostramo's dying star was wan and pale, for some it was the last thing they would ever see. Even the Night Haunter was struck down, shaking uncontrollably not at the light, but undergoing one of his prophetic visions. With great tenderness the Emperor laid hands upon His son's head, and calmed the seizure, saying, "Konrad Curze, be at peace. I have arrived, and I intend to take you home." The reply, controlled and level, was recorded for the galaxy to hear: "That is not my name, father. I am Night Haunter... and I have seen the glory of the Imperium that we will create." The Great Crusade The newly renamed Night Lords fought their first campaigns of the Great Crusade alongside the Thousand Sons. This gave Magnus ample opportunity to examine his brother’s fascinating talent, which it seemed was derived from a source far removed from his own method of psychic mastery. Better than almost anyone, Magnus knew that the future was not set in stone, and that the visions could as easily be taken as warnings. Yet despite all attempts to use the information gleaned from these prophesies, the fates always seemed to conspire against him. Shorn of context of what they referred to, the jumble of images only seemed to make sense after the event, by which time it was far too late. Night Haunter became increasingly fatalistic and certain these visions were pre-destined to come to pass. Though he had long resisted it, Night Haunter finally agreed to allow his brother access to the memories of his latest vision. Magnus was more successful than they could have hoped, reassembling the headlong rush of knowledge into a coherent form. Forewarned, they were able to prevent the ambush and destruction of many of the orbiting Imperial Army vessels, and the planet fell into compliance soon afterwards. In the wake of this victory, Night Haunter confessed to his brother the dark truth that had haunted him since he had first met the Emperor on Nostramo; that his prophesy had not, as he had publically stated, been of the inevitable rise of the Imperium. Instead it had shown his own execution, and that the deed had been carried out on the orders of their own father. The proof that the visions were not inevitable and could be averted had freed him to at long last confide this knowledge to another person. With the burden lifted from his shoulders, he was at last able to accept and welcome these visions, and rapidly became skilled at their interpretation. He was also free to set aside his past and reclaimed the name his father had bestowed upon him – that of Konrad Curze. The Night Lords’ apprenticeship was finally at an end, and as the Thousand Sons left, reinforcements arrived in the form of the first Astartes recruited from Nostramo. What should have been a moment of great pride proved to be singularly ill-starred. As Curze greeted these new battle-brothers, he was struck by the vision of his legion corrupted from within and populated by criminals and moral degenerates – individuals who carried out wanton acts of brutality for no better reason than for the sick thrill of it. Where Night Haunter might have resignedly embraced this as the inevitable reason for his execution, Konrad Curze would not. Instead, he ordered the new Astartes placed under confinement, and returned to his homeworld with all haste. He had thought Nostramo left in capable hands. Instead, Curze found that in his absence the criminals had risen up once more and turned the planet into a cesspool of lawlessness. The Adeptus Arbites and the Administratum had been unable to deal with the situation, so it fell to Curze and his Night Lords to re-impose order through the fear of brutal, inevitable retribution. Within a week, crime had dropped back to nothing, and when the legion eventually returned to the Great Crusade, it was an unbending cadre of Night Lords who held stewardship of the planet rather than the hopelessly outclassed Adeptus Arbites. The Night Lords found themselves changed by the experience of Nostramo, and with the lessons of the campaign weighting heavily upon them, they saw the Imperium with fresh eyes. The Great Crusade had become a victim of its own success. With so many worlds conquered so fast, many took advantage of their distance from the front lines to rise up against the Imperium. Long before the Iron Warriors were persuaded to bleed away their strength in garrison duties to address this, the Night Lords took it upon themselves to re-impose the rule of Imperial Law on the faltering galaxy. This was a far more uncompromising, brutal legion than the one which had accompanied the Thousand Sons. It descended on planets only nominally still part of the Imperium, and enshrouded them in a cloak of fear. Planetary leaders were given the ultimatum to submit wholeheartedly to the Pax Imperialis, and any who resisted became bloody public exhibitions to the folly of resistance. They did this not out of sadistic pleasure, but from the knowledge that humanity needed to be subjected to the fear of certain retribution to keep it from straying into corruption. Just as a plant grows twisted if the cane that supports and guides it is removed too soon, the same applied to the Imperium of Mankind. The Night Lords took it upon themselves to do the terrible things required to keep the Imperium from slipping into anarchy and rebellion, and to protect humanity from its own darkest impulses. Curze’s prophetic visions were vital in crushing rebellions before they could gain ground, and the belief was encouraged that they could see the evil that lurked in the hearts of men. They did all of this willingly, knowing that the price was to be hated, and obviously feared, by the very people they were protecting. Treachery Revealed Though undoubtedly effective, the Night Lords’ brutal ways were a source of friction with many of the other, more strait-laced legions. During the Great Crusade Angron personally forbade his World Eaters from fighting alongside them, and the Primarch of the Ultramarines took every opportunity to berate Curze for his methods. Guilliman argued that compliance imposed by fear was too fragile, and pointed to the strength and unity of the worlds his legion had brought into compliance on the Eastern Fringe using the Ultramar model. With the exception of his mentor, Magnus, Curze was never close to his brother Primarchs, and so cared little for their low opinion of him. All that mattered was that the Emperor understood his actions. He left his brothers to their machinations, rivalries and petty posturing, confident that while they might differ in their approaches, they were all in their own ways working towards the greater glory of the Imperium. This belief, and the Night Lords’ participation in the Great Crusade, was abruptly terminated on the planet of Cheraut. It was a testament to the fierce, coordinated resistance of the people of Cheraut that the Primarchs of three legions were sent to finally bring them into compliance. The Night Lords arrived first, and Curze ordered his legion to carry out terrible and public displays of brutality against the military forces who opposed them to paralyse the individual nations with fear. The once cohesive, unified world which had stood firm against veteran regiments of the Imperial Army for more than a year fell into disarray. By the time Fulgrim’s Emperor’s Children and Rogal Dorn’s Imperial Fists arrived, every city stood alone, isolated from even their closest neighbours, and ripe to be conquered piecemeal. To Curze, the Pacification of Cheraut had been a prime example of combining their various talents to great effect, but when he joined his brother Primarchs in the shattered remnants of the world’s last and greatest citadel, he found Dorn not appreciative, but furious. The Imperial Fist railed against what the Night Lords had done, claiming that Guilliman and Angron had been right, and that he would answer for the gross excesses carried out in the Emperor's name. Unwilling to engage in yet another pointless discussion of his methods, Curze turned to leave, but Dorn reached out to stop him. At the touch, Curze was driven to his knees, struck down by a vision of terrible, sickening potency: ...When he awoke from the vision, his hands were around Dorn's throat, and in a desperate attempt to prevent the future he had been shown he continued to attack, rending and tearing with tooth and nail. Even as the blows rained down on him from all those around, he tried to explain the importance of what he was doing, but his words were lost in a howl of incoherent pain and rage. He shrugged off the yellow armoured Legionaries as though they were nothing, but before he could take the life of his treacherous brother, Fulgrim was there, and in a blur of purple and gold tore him away from Dorn and knocked Curze unconscious. While held in custody aboard the ''Phalanx - the vast mobile fortress-flagship of the Imperial Fist fleet – Curze came to realise the full gravity of his situation. His carefully crafted reputation as an object of fear, and the damning testimony of Fulgrim, someone known to loathe Rogal Dorn, had left people wary of his motives and even of his sanity. Furthermore, having seen the suspicion and unfair accusations of sorcery that dogged his brother Magnus, any talk of prophesy would serve only to further weaken his case. Knowing the result that a trial before the Council of Primarchs would return, and that his vision had shown him as Dorn's prisoner, he made his escape from the Phalanx leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. While the Imperial Fists and Emperor’s Children searched for him in vain, he made his way back to his legion, and quietly slipped away into the darkness between the stars. The Siege of Terra As ever, the background and context to Curze’s prophetic vision had been maddeningly lacking. The only thing of which he could be certain was that Dorn would spit on his oaths of fealty to the Emperor and attempt to kill Him in His own throne room. Knowing nothing of the insidiously corrupting nature of the Ruinous Powers, Curze could not comprehend why a dutiful and self-sacrificing individual such as Dorn would turn on the Emperor. In fact, it was just these traits that had earned him the title of the Emperor’s Praetorian, and the Imperial Fists the honour of garrisoning the Imperial Palace from attack; something which made the Night Lords’ task all the more difficult. They looked on as hunted fugitives, unable to prevent the disasters that were to come, but when Dorn’s treachery was finally revealed at the Istvaan Drop-site massacre, the Night Lords were in place to act. With the anarchy of Dorn's rebellion, the Night Lords were at last able to penetrate the supremely tight defences of the Terran system without detection. Unfortunately, by this point the Emperor was already trapped inside his Throne Room by the demi-legion of Imperial Fists which Dorn had left to garrison the outer palace. So good were the Imperial Fists at this task, that despite all their stealth, it was only with the arrival of the Blood Angels, and their eventual sloppy relief of the Imperial Fists on the outer walls, that the Night Lords were finally able to penetrate the walls of the palace. They ran riot through the palace, attacking the forces of Chaos and the Imperial Fists in particular, but for all the devastation they caused, it was merely a distraction. Their true purpose was to release the Emperor from the cage His Throne Room had become. Curze begged his father to leave Terra, but the Emperor was unbending in his refusal. Even the arrival on Terra of Rogal Dorn at the head of the Istvaan Traitor Legions could not dissuade Him, after which Curze never again broached the subject. What the Emperor said to convince Curze that He must not leave Terra to the traitors has long-since been lost to the ages, but most within the legion believe that it refers to a prophesy borne not by the son, but by the father. Still unaware that their quarry had been spirited away, the traitors continued to focus all of their efforts on breaching the walls of the throne room. This allowed the Night Lords to do what they knew best; instilling the fear of retribution amongst the Chaos forces across the planet. During this time, Curze received further warnings, which he tried to avert with varying degrees of success. His vision of Perturabo being dealt a grievous, plague-infected wound by Sanguinius of the Blood Angels came even as the assault on the Ultimate Gate was about to take place. Despite contacting Perturabo minutes before the attack, the Primarch of the Iron Warriors contemptuously ignored the warning, and was instead killed outright by the rotting Primarch. Even beyond the grief and responsibility Curze felt for the loss of his brother, the revelation that his actions could inadvertently create an even darker path shook Curze to the core. As the Siege of Terra ground through its third month, the war fell into stalemate, with neither side able to comprehensively defeat the other. With the long-delayed fleets of the Dark Angels and Space Wolves growing ever-closer, the Imperial forces sought a way to end the rebellion before they could arrive by killing the Arch-Betrayer himself. However, since the breaching of the Imperial throne room Dorn had rarely been seen on Terra, and had instead taken to coordinating the campaign from the Phalanx. Protected behind countless banks of void shields and wielding enough firepower to devastate any Imperial fleet sent against it, the Phalanx appeared impervious to assault. Every attack simulation the Warmaster could conceive ended in abject failure, and while a covert action might prove more successful, there was no time to put such a plan into operation. At that moment Curze stepped from the shadows, and announced that he would be able to bring down the Phalanx's shields for long enough to allow a strike-force to teleport aboard. He had been granted a vision of the desperate direct assault against the Phalanx, and of the Imperial fleet, including the Warmaster's own flagship, illuminating the night like new suns as they burned. Since he had received that warning, the Night Lords had spent every waking moment preparing and analysing the weaknesses of the Phalanx. Just as Konrad Curze had escaped from the Phalanx as it lay in orbit around Cheraut, he was certain he and his team could also break onto it. The Phalanx The Phalanx that Curze found waiting for him was subtly different from the one he remembered from his last visit. Gone were the cold, functional ascetics, replaced instead by the corruption he had come to associate with the servants of the Ruinous Powers. The insidious taint affected even their vox channels and drowned their frequencies with white noise. He and his hand-picked companions ghosted with ease through the darkened, nearly deserted corridors. By melting into the shadows to avoid patrols and killing only when necessary, they were able to reach their objective without alerting the enemy to their presence. Though the shield generator dwarfed anything aboard their own ships, it was only one of many aboard the Phalanx, and its destruction would leave the ship vulnerable for only a brief span. The Night Lords triggered their explosives and reduced the shield generator to slag, but with their vox channels useless they could but hope that the Emperor’s strike force had been ready to attack. With their presence revealed, the Night Lords took advantage of the devastation and darkness to turn the enemy's territory into their own. They were in their element, but such was the size of the Phalanx that Curze knew it would be impossible to reach his father before His assault on Dorn's Command Sanctum. The Night Lords would have been content simply to punish the followers of the Arch-Betrayer that pressed in on them, but it soon became apparent that something had gone terribly wrong. Due to the corrupted nature of the ship, they almost dismissed the twisted half-figure merged into the wall as yet another daemonic manifestation, and yet the distinctive burnished golden armour revealed it to be nothing less than one of the Emperor's Custodian Guard. Curze even recognised the man as part of his father's strike force, who had clearly suffered a catastrophic accident during teleportation. As Curze reached out to close the eyes of the tortured man, he was again struck by a vision of the near-future. Through tears of grief, Curze told his officers that he had seen the Traitors triumphant. He spoke of Dorn boasting of how he had feigned shaking off the daemonic and begged forgiveness, and had used that moment of confusion to strike down first Warmaster Horus and then the Emperor. With no way to contact his father to warn of Dorn's treachery, and being much too far from the command bridge to fight their way there, Curze did the only thing he could to get into Dorn's presence. Much to the dismay of his Night Lords, he left them with the cryptic phrase "This will be my Investiary," before surrendering to the Imperial Fists and demanding to be taken before their Primarch. The Night Lords fought on with renewed ferocity, but by the time they cut their way through to the Sons of Horus the battle, and the Heresy, had already ended. Curze's actions had bought the Emperor enough warning to raise His guard against Dorn's deceit, but it came at a terrible cost. The last seconds of Curze's life were recorded on the vid-logs of the Primarch's own armour. Curze was securely chained and shackled, yet confident as he was brought before Dorn. When offered the stark choice between life and death – to join the rebellion, or die there and then - Curze gave a chilling, contemptuous laugh, and calmly rejected his offer, before defiantly addressing Rogal Dorn: Despite exhaustive examination, the exchange has given little clue as to exactly how Curze's death averted the events of his prophetic vision. All is certain is that through this act of supreme self-sacrifice, the Emperor's life was saved, and the Arch-Betrayer's Heresy brought to an end. Pax Imperialis Dorn's Heresy had ended with his death aboard the Phalanx, but it had dealt a crippling blow to both the Emperor and His Imperium. Just as Nostramo had slipped back into corruption and anarchy when Curze first left the planet, they saw the same thing happening on a galaxy-wide scale. Though the grieving Night Lords yearned to join the other loyal Astartes in running down the retreating Traitor Legions, their first Legion Master, Zso Sahaal, realised that their skills could be put to use in a far more productive way. The Night Lords used their dread reputation and the promise of inevitable and bloody retribution to prevent the fragile Imperium from splintering into a million warring fiefdoms. They became the shadow of fear that enforced the ''Pax Imperialis. In this task they were aided by the High Lords of Terra, who ruled in the Emperor's name, and in particular by their leader, Ezekyle Abaddon of the newly renamed Black Templars. Having seen at first hand the service and sacrifice of Curze and his Night Lords, High Lord Abaddon gave them carte blanche to bring rebellious planets back into line, and to ensure that governors thinking of declaring independence reconsidered the wisdom of such actions. He also ordered that the full weight of the Officio Assassinorum stand alongside the Night Lords in this task, an edict which remains in force to this day. Along with the extensive intelligence-gathering abilities of the Vanus Clade of Assassins, who monitor and predict worlds likely to fall to rebellion or to come under attack by invasion, a rare few Night Lords are also blessed with their Primarch's gift of prophesy. This allows the Night Lords to crush insurrections in their infancy, and to divert forces to stand against acts of aggression by xenos and Chaos forces. Yet for all the good that the Night Lords do, their appearance is rarely greeted with enthusiasm. All too often they are seen as harbingers of doom, arriving as they do just ahead of either an invading war-fleet, or as agents of bloody vengeance. With good reason it is said that the black eyes of the Night Lords are able to see the evil in mens' hearts, and as few are without a trace of sin, many a guilty conscience is prickled by word of their arrival. Legion Organisation Pre-Heresy The inheritance of Nostramo coiled throughout the structure of the Night Lords. Outwardly they followed a pattern close to many other Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade era, but behind this basic skeleton lay the courts of Nostramo, the gang traditions and the aesthetics of terror that infuses every aspect of the VIII Legion. At the squad level, the Night Lords fielded a broad range of units, though taken as a whole the number of configured Breacher Siege Squads were proportionally rarer than in other Legions. The Night Lords also had a number of unique units: the infamous Terror Squads, whose sole purpose was to create and embody a state of horror in their enemies, and the Night Raptor Squads, who would soar above their enemies trailing the bloody remains of their kills while shrieking from modified vox casters. Almost all squads within the VIII Legion had a name that they use in place of the simple designation. So it is that squads within a company might be referred to as "Claws", "Talons" or a number of other epithets often coupled with an indication of hierarchy or honorific: the Stygian Talon, the 10th Claw, the 5th Oathed, to name but a few amongst thousands. The company was the basic strategic deployment unit within the Night Lords Legion and each squad belonged to a company which might number anywhere between 100 and 1,000 warriors. Most companies had a title in addition to their numeric designation. The 27th Company were (their names in translation from the Nostraman) "The Shattered Skull", the 104th Company "The Sable Brothers", the 71st Company "The Crimson Judges" and so on. Unlike many others, the Night Lords used battalions and Chapters as semi-permanent groupings of companies, rather than a universal structure favouring their own divisions. This seemingly byzantine complexity masked a surprisingly efficient and flexible approach to warfare which allowed the VIII Legion to operate with a high degree of fluidity and to be readily fractured into autonomous units or combined into ad hoc formations as their master dictated. A notable example of one of these unique formations is the "Crimson Sons". This formation was formed from the remnants of the VIII Legion's 9th Company midway through the Terran Unification Wars, as their formation had suffered near total destruction during the pacification of the wasteland domain of Oxitania. The Emperor, in His beneficence, offered the King of Oxitania the rank of Rogue Trader in remission of his execution. The "Crimson Sons" would retain a degree of the VIII Legion's early heraldry before the return of Konrad Curze and fought as a coherent unit, serving alongside the Rogue Trader Gotha before returning to the VIII Legion's fold. The later status and whereabouts of the Crimson Sons is unknown, and it is possible they were slain during the many battles of the Dornian Heresy which followed the Dropsite Massacre. Post-Heresy The Night Lords retain their formal grand company command structure, although in practice they are split into forces of rarely more than a half a dozen squads, the better to cover the truly enormous scale of the Imperium. They generally prefer small, swift vessels to the massive battle-barges of some other legions, relying on speed and stealth rather than raw firepower. Their mere presence in a system is sufficient to remind Imperial governors and citizens alike of their responsibilities, and to banish any foolish thoughts of rebellion. Given their preferred method of combat, the actions of even a single squad of Night Lords are magnified by wildfire rumour so that the enemy will believe they are fighting an entire company of shades. The legion is aided both on and off the battlefield by the temples of the Assassins, from the infocytes of Clade Vanus procuring and analysing data to the agents of the Vindicare training battle-brothers in the fine art of killing from afar. Though a Night Lord force commonly counts but a single assassin amongst their number, far rarer and more prized are the legion's prophets. They can come from any background or specialisation – for instance, one of the legion's finest and most valiant prophets was not an officer, but an apothecary – and as soon as their talent manifests they come under close scrutiny by the brothers of the Librarium. As Magnus the Red well understood, there is little link between the psychic power of the librarians and the prophetic visions of the Night Lords. They are invaluable, however, in helping to draw out and analyse the often maddeningly vague assemblage of images into a coherent form, and to help identify when and where the disaster is set to occur. They are also used to test the veracity of both the prophesy, and even of the prophet himself, as the consequences of the Ruinous Powers influencing these visions would be truly disastrous. Legion Command Hierarchy Konrad Curze was the Dark King of his Legion, a figure of fear for his sons as much as on object of loyalty. His sons were fiercely loyal to their gene-sire. Curze appeared not to care for sycophants or displays of flattery and decorum, so as long as when he commanded, all obeyed. In the modern era, the role of commanding the Night Lords has fallen to a Legion Master. This is an esteemed title granted to a veteran Astartes warrior who is unanimously elected by his peers within the Kryoptera - the ruling elite of the VIII Legion - for his tactical acumen, steadfast dedication and loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind as well as his unmatched personal combat prowess. This is the highest echelon attainable within the Night Lords. During the Great Crusade and Dornian Heresy eras, around him the Dark King maintained a court of his most elite sons. The members of this group, the Kyroptera, were drawn from senior officers across the VIII Legion and transcended rank. All had a quality that Curze found valuable, especially those who possessed a strong sense of justice and a drive to enact retribution. This is still true today, as members of the Kryoptera are still chosen by the Legion Master for the same core values that their gene-sire desired in his most loyal sons. Membership in the Kryoptera gave no absolute rank, but the fact remains that they are still the ruling elite of the Night Lords, and so few others will openly disobey a command from one of them. Alongside these serves the Atramaentar - a company-strength formation equipped with Terminator Armour and armed with the finest weapons. They were personally commanded by the First Captain of the Night Lords and enforcers of order, a tradition which is still maintained to this very day. Renowned for their cold brutality in battle and their unswerving loyalty to their commander and their Primarch, and though this cannot now be confirmed, it is widely thought that they served as Curze's executioners when the need arose. Beneath the Kyroptera are the many Captains of the companies. The few of these that had been graced with leading several companies under the banner of a battalion or Chapter went by a variety of inconsistent ranks including Commander, Master and Regent, amongst others. While these exalted leaders had clear command over the units placed under them, their authority in the VIII Legion as a whole seems to have been more malleable. A Regent might have a handful of Captains under his command, but be subject to the commands of a different Captain if that Captain were of the Kryoptera, or exalted in some other way. Just as squads and companies bore names to set them apart from each other, so too did the commanders of the Legion adorn their names with secondary monikers and titles. Many of these titles had echoes in the cursed nobility and gangs of Nostramo: "Talonmaster", the" Bloodless" or the "Sightless Revenant". A few were no doubt calculated insults that either stuck or were adopted by their bearers out of perversity. Legion Strength During the era of the Great Crusade, apparently fighting their own wars with little or no regard or contact with the rest of the Great Crusade's chain of command, it had been some time since an accurate survey of the Night Lords' strength had been made. Estimates of the strength of the Legion therefore varied wildly. Some put their numbers at a little over 90,000 Legionaries, others at 120,000. The Legion was known to have been recruiting from subjugated worlds throughout the latter part of the Great Crusade, in some cases stealing away the youth of entire star systems as the base from which to winnow suitable Aspirants. The use of rapid psycho-conditioning and accelerated gene-seed implantation was also known to be widely practiced by the Night Lords, further supporting suggestions that their numbers were at least on par with many of the more numerous Space Marine Legions. It is also likely that a number of Night Lords elements were not at the Isstvan System, but were engaged in other self-selected actions in the unconquered corners of the galaxy at that time. Currently, their numbers stand around 100,000 Legionaries, though others place them as high as 130,000. But due to being deployed across the width and breadth of the Imperium, the results of any accurate consensus undertaken by the Administratum are dubious at best. Specialist Ranks & Formations *'''Kyroptera - The Kyroptera were the Night Haunter's most trusted advisors and confidants within the Night Lords Legion. In the modern era, they continue to serve the Legion Master of the Night Lords. Consisting of seven chosen Captains of the Legion, the Kyroptera exists outside the rest of the VIII Legion's regular command structure. Together the Kyroptera functions as the soul of the Night Lords, supporting their Legion Master and steering the Legion's temperament and decisions. *'Atramentar' - The Atramentar are the elite Terminator-armoured unit of Battle-Brothers from the VIII Legion's formidable 1st Company led by their Legion's First Captain. This elite cadre's numbers are chosen from amongst the standard ranks of the Night Lords Legion from Legionaries who have been singled out and personally selected by the Legion Master for their ferocity, dedication and drive to enact justice. Each member is known by name and reputation within and without the Night Lords Legion. *'Terror Squad' - Terror Squads are specialist squads of Space Marines utilised exclusively by the Night Lords since the Great Crusade and the Dornian Heresy eras. When the Legion desires to unleash maximum punishment and retribution against the enemy in the most visceral and personal way possible, the Terror Squads of the VIII Legion are unleashed. Head hunters and torturers, flayers and mutilators; within their ranks are found both the most coldly dispassionate and darkly imaginative of the Night Lords brethren, and where once the terrifying arts of murder and mayhem they perpetrated were a coldly calculated means to an end. The Terror Squads have become a rare fraternity for the most driven and loyal sons of the Night Lords. *'Night Raptors' - Night Raptor squads are a caste apart from the Night Lords Legion -- a martial elite of deadly warriors wedded together by similar methods and chosen styles of warfare. The Night Raptors are equipped with jump packs and an array of close combat weapons, all of which they utilise to bring unfettered savagery down upon the heads of their foes in a single, overwhelming onslaught. *''Unguis Raptus'' - Gifted to him by his gene-sire before his untimely death during the Siege of Terra, the Legion's First Captain Zso Sahaal, the "Talonmaster", incorporated the use of archaic Lightning Claws which he had named the Unguis Raptus -- the "Raptor's Claws" -- into his battle-plate, and in so doing, also coined the name of the command company for the VIII Legion's elite 1st Company. Before the Dornian Heresy (known to the Night Lords only as the "Great War") Zho Sahaal's Unguis Raptus company of Night Lords Raptors became justly feared by the VIII Legion's enemies. First in the name of the Emperor, and then for the Night Haunter alone, they brought swift death from above to their foes. Vehicles The Night Lords have access to the full range of war machines utilised by the Emperor's armies, and even though the VIII Legion favours terror tactics and infiltration over set piece battles, it still makes use of such mighty vehicles. Because each of the Legion's companies tend to operate independently, most of the Night Lords' vehicles are held at the company level, squadrons operating in direct support of the company's squads. A small number of companies within the Legion choose to operate exclusively as armoured formations, often acting on the direct orders of the Legion Master or the VIII Legion's command cadre when several companies are fielded together as a battalion or Chapter and more substantial armoured support is required. The Caradara Armour Claw is one such company-sized armoured unit whose reputation had spread beyond its Legion before Dorn's treachery. The formation's masters had perfected a form of armoured combat which mirrored that utilised by the VIII Legion as a whole. Striking when possible from the darkness of dusk or dawn, the Caradara assaulted the enemy where they were weakest, rampaging through rear zones in order to sever lines of communication, and resupply and isolate individual concentrations of enemy troops. Having done so, the Caradara destroyed its targets at its leisure according to the proclivities of individual squadron or vehicle commanders. The Caradara are often noted to favour using prow-mounted dozer blades to bury enemy troops in their own trenches, while other gain unholy satisfaction from overrunning helpless defenders and grinding their bodies beneath the tracks of their armoured vehicles. Needless to say, few defences stand long against such brutal assaults. Legion Armoury The Night Lords utilise a wide range of assets, finding that even the most standardised of weapons and armour can be adapted and utilised in their favoured manner of warfare. Armoured troop transports of all classes are used by the VIII Legion to smash deep into the heart of the enemy's positions, with flanks clad in grotesque trophies to sow horror and dread in all who look upon them. Aircraft are used to deliver death from the night sky, descending without warning to strike the enemy where he least expects it and ensuring that no foe can afford even a moment's rest or respite. They also make more use of automated systems such as the Tarantula than many other Legions, preferring to assign mundane duties as static defence to such robotic weapons, as well as employing them as part of their offensive strategies cunningly concealed and programmed to funnel enemy refugees into killing grounds pre-registered by the Legion's artillery masters. Legion Home World In the centuries before the coming of the Imperium, Nostramo had been mined intensively for the adamantium riches which lay beneath its surface, and the industrial processes needed to refine the metal for export had reduced the atmosphere to a noxious fume. It did not require the power of prophesy to foresee that, if left unchecked, the Imperium’s insatiable greed would rapidly mine the planet hollow and render the air completely unbreatheable. For this reason, on taking Nostramo as their homeworld the Night Lords enforced stringent quotas on mining, and have remained unbending even in the face of intense pressure to increase production. If they should ever waver, they need only remember the tragic fate of Cthonia, and indeed the fall of the Dark Angels on Caliban, to stiffen their resolve. Despite the arrival of the Emperor bringing daylight to Nostramo, the population had proved unwilling to embrace this new dawn. For a people genetically adapted to the darkness, even the weak sunlight which reaches them can be blinding, and under the protection of the Night Lords there is little to fear from the shadows. Because of this, Nostraman society conducts its business wherever possible during the night, with the population careful to return to their shuttered homes before the first scorching rays of sun return at dawn. The only souls to be found out during the day are those not indigenous to the planet, or those forced by circumstance to brave the daylight behind goggles of smoked glass and layers of protective clothing. Over the millennia the five cities of Nostramo have steadily expanded, although Quintus, the place where the infant Primarch first fell to earth and the site of the legion's fortress-monastery, retains primacy. It is said by off-worlders that despite their large populations the cities of Nostramo are unnervingly quiet and well-ordered. The streets are clean and free of litter, and even the air is sweet – at least in comparison to the levels of pollution pumped into the atmosphere before the arrival of the Emperor. Tenebor The moon of Tenebor holds a great fascination for the people of Nostramo. During the hours of darkness its presence is cursed, as the moonlight it reflects is said to spoil the purity of the night. To a Nostraman it only becomes 'true night' once the moon slips below the horizon. Conversely, during the day the total eclipses it brings are seen as greatly favoured, as they blot out not only the sun, but also a great many of the stars in the sky. As befits such an influential celestial body, Tenebor makes an appearance among the Lesser Arconoi; a Nostraman variant of the Emperor's Tarot. Because of the duality of its nature, it is said to carry a multitude of different interpretations depending upon its position, orientation and interaction with the other cards in the draw. Legion Recruitment While many of the Emperor's legions draw their recruits from across the Imperium, the Night Lords take aspirants almost exclusively from their homeworld. They do this not from dogmatism, but from long experience that, not just physiologically, but also psychologically, the Nostraman population yields the most promising and compatible aspirants. However, there was a time when this was not thought to be the case. During the Great Crusade, Curze had to return to Nostramo to reverse the world’s descent into anarchy and corruption. To prevent his legion from becoming tainted with moral degenerates and psychopaths he turned his Night Lords loose upon the criminal elements in an echo of his first great purge of Nostraman society. So effective was this that some grew concerned that the population had become cowed into such a submissive state that they would be all-but useless as Astartes. Needless to say, they should not have doubted their Primarch. Just as the Nostraman people had adapted to the dark by losing their irises, they also adapted to a society where crime was so swiftly, brutally and publically punished by embracing Curze’s concept of natural justice not just as the norm, but as their moral duty. Rather than passively avert their eyes from criminal acts, secure in the knowledge that their Night Lord guardians would soon deal very publically with the miscreant, Nostramans gained the confidence to stand against wrongdoers themselves. While at first this may have been done out of fear, that inaction might have been seen as complicity, it has long since been because seeing such acts genuinely offends their ingrained sense of justice. While the Night Lords continue to watch over Nostramo and its people, what little crime that might occur is frequently dealt with by ordinary citizens. The Night Lords continue to watch silently from the shadows, but their role is now as much to identify those who might possess the moral fibre to become potential aspirants as it is to guard the streets from crime. To those truly without sin, the world of Nostramo is the safest in the Imperium. Legion Combat Doctrine To the Night Lords, fear is a weapon as deadly as the bolter or the chainsword. For this reason they openly proclaim their presence through haunting whispers in the vox channels even before the first flayed enemy corpse is left for all to see. This throws their opponents into disarray, often withdrawing back to the perceived safety of their bases, although by this time the Night Lords have long-since infiltrated the area. They strike seemingly from nowhere, favouring hit-and-run attacks to frontal assaults, before melting back into the darkness. Nowhere is safe from the Night Lords' wrath, and this continues until even the dullest of imaginations comes to see them in every shadow and dark corner. In this way a small number of Night Lords can seemingly be everywhere, and can paralyse a whole army, or even a whole world with fear. Only when a base or settlement is psychologically isolated, with nothing to listen to on the vox but the chilling promise of retribution and the looped screams of their missing squad mates, do the Night Lords mass for the final attack. With their helms decorated like skulls, they appear as death incarnate, come to claim those who have transgressed the Emperor’s laws. Even in cases where the enemy is said to have no fear, the Night Lords finely honed talents have still proved to be effective. Be they the synapse-creatures of the Tyranid Hive-mind or the corrupted Magos of the Dark Mechanicus, by targeting their leaders, the followers are soon left either milling around in confusion, or are soon ordered to adopt a far more static, defensive stance. Though some may call it a simple logical or evolutionary response to the presence of the Night Lords, this rapid drawing in of forces and settling into a state of heightened awareness holds many similarities to that of fear. Legion Beliefs Pre-Heresy Space Marine Legions often changed after the rediscovery of their Primarch and their surrogate homeworld. In the case of the VIII Legion, Nostramo and Curze infused them, but at first they seemed the least changed of all of the Legions upon the return of their gene-sire. There were changes of course, but many of these were relatively small. Nostraman became the language of the VIII Legion, its curling runes and sibilant words spreading as Nostraman recruits began to include a dark and cruel sense of humour, and a snide fatalism. New traditions, twisted reflections of Nostraman gang-rites and customs, were adopted within the Legion, such as marking condemned Legionaries' gauntlets red to show that a death sentence hung over them. The honorific titles sported by many of the VIII Legion's officers started to take on the form of those of the Nostraman noble courts. These changes, though noticeable, did not touch the heart of the VIII Legion's nature, for if anything, Curze's return saw the Legion's righteous drive to punish intensify. Their ways and methods of war changed not at all, and the integration of Terran and Nostraman warriors was amongst the swiftest of any Legion. The old Legion and the new fitted together like two sides of a coin; both raised from darkness to create order and strife, both made of flesh born in shunned and lightless places. Callous and brutal though they were, the Night Lords were not without pride, and the trappings and titles of aristocracy and dominion formed a key part of their identity, and rivalry, often violent, was endemic among the Astartes of the VIII Legion. The gang traditions of their lightless homeworld were carried over to every aspect of their Legion. There were few amongst their ranks who did not bear some form of title, and the craftsmanship with which they embellished their weapons and armour was remarkable, if grotesque. Furthermore, far more so than even the most barbarous members of the World Eaters or White Scars Legions, they habitually adorned their armour and vehicles with the brutalised and mutilated remains of those who had resisted them, and made an art of flaying and presenting the dead in order to sow fear in their foes. There was method in this madness, at least at first; such grisly displays were a clear signal saying, "This fate will be yours to share." Post-Heresy The Night Lords believe they are the retributors of the Emperor, created for the sole purpose of bringing swift, merciless justice to those that would dare transgress against Him and the laws of the Imperium. They reserve a special hatred for those who reject the Emperor and embrace something else in His place - be it an apostate, a rebellious planetary ruler or more grievously, foul xenos or the servants of the Ruinous Powers. The eradication of such heresy is a prime goal of the Night Lords. When the High Lords of Terra have identified a world whose faith has been found wanting and turned their backs on both the Imperium and the God-Emperor, the Night Lords are unleashed. Such crimes require not simply crushing but retribution. These actions are well suited to this Legion. The Night Lords are veterans of countless campaigns of terror and conquest. Each member of the Legion is highly trained and proficient in the use of terror tactics, psychological warfare, and lightning raids and ambushes intended to leave their opponents completely demoralised and easy targets for the callous Legionaries of the VIII Legion. The Night Lords feel it is their sacred duty to drag those found wanting back from the shadows of ignorance and discord, and into illumination. Imperial law is clear - the Emperor rewards thoroughness. If there is the slightest suspicion or involvement of such heresy, they must be purged through any means necessary. When it involves an entire world, the Murdering Sons are not so discerning as to single out just those responsible. In their eyes, all are guilty by association. The Night Lords show no mercy and offer no quarter. Their methods often leads to the destruction of entire cities and, if need be, entire worlds. Better a dead world than one that does not bow to the Emperor - or worse, serves His enemies and the enemies of all Mankind. The Night Lords have no moral compunction performing the most barbarous acts in order to carry out the will of the Council of the High Lords. Their drive to enact retribution overrides all other impulses within them. It is not known if this is a result of some particular curse of their blood or if it was intentionally engineered into their gene-seed. Their ways and methods of war are geared towards the righteous drive to punish the guilty. Most disturbing of all, is the Night Lords' proclivity for torture and outright murder. They believe that the terrifying arts of murder and mayhem that they perpetrate in the Emperor's name are coldly calculated means to an end. In their skewed moral view, there is no such thing is innocence or guilt. The Sons of Curze believe justice is neither warm nor caring, and those who are judged and found wanting, only deserve swift retribution as cold and dispassionate as the sharpened edges of their flaying knives. Serving as judge, jury and executioners, the Night Lords willingly enact their bloody form of justice against those whose crimes are deemed particularly egregious in the eyes of the Senatorum Imperialis. The brutal punishments carried out by the Night Lords are designed to be at their most visceral and personal which include - systematic mutilation, flaying, flogging, crucifixion and dismemberment. One of their more brutal traditions is the practice of habitually wearing totem-relics of significant enemies upon their battle-plate. They are also known to adorn their armour and vehicles with the bones, skulls and sometimes flayed skins of those who have resisted the rule of the Imperium - a psychological ploy utilised by the Night Lords to great effect. These grisly displays send a clear message to those yet to be punished that a similar fate awaits them. Legion Gene-Seed Although the Primarch of the Night lords is long-dead, his legacy lives on in the form of the gene-seed implanted into every one of the legion's battle-brothers. This gene-line has proved to be stable and resistant to mutation, with all nineteen implants functioning with commendable efficiency. Of particular note is the startlingly acute night-vision displayed by the Night Lords, which is believed to be due to a particularly fortuitous interaction between their Occulobe and the black, iris-less eyes of the Nostraman population. While this gift has helped to shape the tactics used by every Night Lord, there is another, far more extraordinary inheritance passed down from Konrad Curze to but a select few of his brethren – the power of prophesy. Such are the stresses that these visions place upon both body and soul that their bearers can be readily identified by their haunted, even haggard appearance. Because of the huge role that these warnings play in the psyche and effectiveness of the legion a staggering amount of research has gone into understanding how to increase the number of individuals able to harness this invaluable talent. Over the centuries innumerable approaches have been championed, and yet in truth the proportion of individuals with this talent has barely kept pace with the expansion of the legion. Legion Fleet The Night Lords are known to have possessed the following vessels within their Legion fleet: *''Nightfall'' (Gloriana-class Battleship) - Flagship of the Night Lords Legion. *''Hunter's Premonition'' (Battle Barge) *''Praxis Mundi'' (Battle Barge) *''Umbrea Insidior'' (Battle Barge) - Battle Barge assigned to the 1st Company of the Night Lords Legion. *''Terrorclaw'' (Battle Barge) *''Aeternum Dread'' (Strike Cruiser) *''Avenging Shadow'' (Strike Cruiser) *''Covenant of Blood'' (Strike Cruiser) *''Dusk's Daughter'' (Strike Cruiser) *''Echo of Damnation'' (Strike Cruiser) *''Excoriator'' (Strike Cruiser) - Strike Cruiser and sister ship to the Covenant of Blood *''Nycton'' (Strike Cruiser) *''Obfuscate'' (Strike Cruiser) *''Quintus'' (Strike Cruiser) *''Throneless King'' (Strike Cruiser) *''Tenebraxis'' (Cruiser, Unknown Class) *''Warlock'' (Cruiser, Unknown Class) *''Faithless Song'' ([Endeavour-class Light Cruiser]]) *''Serpent of the Black Sea'' (Capital Ship, Unknown Class) Legion Appearance Legion Colours The Night Lords' primarily wear midnight blue coloured power armour. Their battle-plate is not only commonly adorned in images of their Legion, but they are also covered in symbols of death such as trophy racks, spikes, spiked armor, and numerous skulls of all sizes. These death fetishes and adornments to their armour is designed to evoke both fear and revulsion. Their battle-plate also possesses a peculiar form of imagery that occurs on each and every Night Lords Legionary's armour. The Night Lords' midnight blue armor is alive with a mysterious network of lightning bolts that constantly play across their armour when in combat. This is made possible through the use of arco projectors strategically placed on a Legionary's battle-plate, which replicates a lightning motif that terrorises their foes in the ink blackness of the night. Legion Badge The Night Lords' Legion badge is a bleached skull with red coloured Chiropteran wings, centered on a field of midnight blue. Trivia This article was originally authored by Aurelius Rex over on the Bolter & Chainsword forums. All rights are reserved to him. Gallery NL Crimson Sons Veteran.png|A Legionary of the "Crimson Sons" in Mark III 'Iron' pattern power armour, part of the formation that was created from the remnants of the VIII Legion's 9th Company, wearing the Night Lords Legion's original heraldry and colour scheme before the return of Konrad Curze. NL_Pre-Heresy Termi.png|A Night Lords Veteran Legionary arrayed in Cataphractii pattern Terminator Armour during the Great Crusade. NL_Atrementar Termi.png|A modern-era Night Lords Veteran Legionary of the elite Atrementar, arrayed in Indomitus pattern Terminator Armour. Category:N Category:Imperium Category:Loyalists Category:Space Marine Legions